


Molly Hooper: a study in pathological conditions

by escailyy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awesome Molly Hooper, BAMF Molly Hooper, Character Development, Character Study, F/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Jargon, Molly Is Patient, Sherlock is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9496646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escailyy/pseuds/escailyy
Summary: I think the obvious answer is that she can't find happiness with someone else, because Sherlock is just in her blood.  -Louise Brealey





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had a long one week debate with myself on wether to post this..Today I was brave enough. Loo's quote inspired this one

  
The doctor part of her brain always had an answer for everything.

And it liked to compare Sherlock Holmes to quite a list of medical conditions, he was something in her blood.

Molly supposed it was a fitting metaphor, she remembered the first time she'd ever become interested in medicine was because of blood, at five years old, child of a single father indulged in too much of the meals she wanted, a doctor had diagnosed Molly with basic anemia.

"It's a blood disorder" the old pediatrician had said in a kindly voice " your blood isn't doing what it's supposed to do because it doesn't have enough iron and folic acid to supply all your body, that's why you feel tired and dizzy and not yourself"

"And taking those vitamins will cure me?" Asked Molly asked perking up

"Well yes, as long as you take them every day and don't refuse to eat your vegetables"

"What if I'm never cured?" She asked again with the inquisitive curiosity of a five year old "what are incurable blood disorders called?"

"Autoimmune" the doctor replied automatically shaking his head "but that won't happen to you Molly, because anemia isn't that type of sickness okay, now go to your papa, here have a lollipop" he grinned ruffling her hair.

But that was the day Molly's interest in her father's work began, as a child she'd wondered: what happened to people who were never cured? Did they just die? Why didn't the people who worked with the dead find cures?.

Years later she learned much more about the subject in medical school, happily sailing trough it and graduating Summa Cum Laude and accepting the internship in St Barts that an old colleague had offered her. She had proudly made a life for herself but every once in a while she would wonder about the power incurable diseases had in people.

Molly rarely felt her life lacked meaning but that afternoon as she tried to rid herself of the memory of her latest test results hadn't been the best time for Sherlock to call.

It all came back to blood didn't it?.

The stress, the late nights at work, babysitting Rosie, the headaches, it all kept her from eating as she was supposed to and it shouldn't have been a shock to see anemia in those test results.

Putting the phone down Molly wondered if this was what an autoimmune condition felt like.

She hadn't meant to love him, well not in the beginning really, he'd been just an attractive man who worked his charm on her. It was like candy, really who would fault a girl for eating candy?, candy wasn't harmful when one didn't ingest too much of it outside work. A simple crush, these things passed, Molly had had crushes before, there was no reason to think eating candy at work was going to develop into anything other than a future need for a diet.

Except she was wrong, as a doctor she should have known too much candy made her a flight risk for diabetes.

The hurt came later much later, after she'd gotten used to having candy show up in her morgue and demand her work specifically, the hurt should have been expected, she liked to call it the diagnosis. That awful Christmas party where he'd both insulted her and later apologized.

The doctor in her had laid down the facts and she'd cried when she got back home, it was official she was a danger to herself, too much indulgence in candy while ignoring her own risk factors had made her a prime example of patient stupidity, Sherlock Holmes had stopped being candy and turned into her very own type 2 diabetes.

'This is what happens when you like something that is bad for you Molly' she'd told herself wishing she could just get rid of whatever tender feelings she'd developed for the horrid man after being humiliated so bad but she knew there was no such luck, Molly couldn't rid herself of her feelings for Sherlock anymore than a diabetic could wish diabetes away.

Being diagnosed with an illness is always hurtful, more so when you know affection has no cure. Back in med school Molly's most fatalistic teachers usually liked to offer two mental solutions to the problem.

The patient either submitted itself for drugs and experimental treatment...Or it learned to live with the condition.

And seeing experimental treatment involved Molly starting over somewhere else, packing up all mental reminders of his existence and hoping it all worked for the best, Molly decided that the best she could do was learn to live with it after all didn't most diabetics lead perfectly normal lives?.

Molly was a pathologist, she knew people learned to live with their conditions all the time, from Aspengers to Lupus, some illnesses the body just couldn't help and why should love be any different? Molly decided.

Yes she could learn to live with her love for Sherlock Holmes, it hurt a bit that he'd never see her the way she did him, but that wasn't his fault either, Molly wouldn't want to force anybody to love her anymore than she'd want anyone to force her to do the same, that was just selfish. After all she'd always been good at loving people for the sake of loving them.

And so it was. She'd learned to live with it.

Meena didn't understand how she could do it, frankly few people did, how she'd easily helped Sherlock in the morgue, always helpful, always smiling, knowing fully well his dismissive attitude would have caused any other woman to break down in tears.

How could Molly explain the concept of loving someone just because you could?. It was such a selfless thing that even Molly herself didn't understand it sometimes.

She rationalized that feelings were a different monster for everyone and some people like Sherlock and Mycroft were emotionally stunted or couldn't process feelings well. Somewhat like Mrs Hudson blueberry allergy (Mrs Hudson's body didn't process the components inside blueberries so she didn't eat them to avoid having an allergic reaction.)

Maybe Molly ate blueberries with a thankful heart because unlike Mrs Hudson she actually could.

She had the capacity to love, so she did, it was as simple as that.

With Sherlock friendship might have been a good way to describe it, offering help, support and an ear for his deductions when John was absent.

Because honestly what was the alternative?, rage? tears? depression?. Why not the option that made her heart hurt the least?. If Molly had to live with the emotional version of diabetes, then at least she wanted to be positive about the whole ordeal.

These were her feelings, she was proud of them and never would she be ashamed of loving people, especially Sherlock Holmes.

(He needed more people who loved him anyway, it's not like her feelings were anything bad for him.)

A darker, morbid part of her wanted to compare Sherlock to poison too, the kind that contained both murder and cure in the same company.

That's what he became for Molly when he asked her for help faking his death, toxin and antidote all in one man.

Maybe that was the moment Molly realized he'd granted her a modicum of power over him when he gave her his trust in that matter, did Sherlock know what trust did to people who loved as easily as Molly did?. Subconsciously he probably did.

it was still nice to know she had grown on him to that extent where he would leave a secret so big in her hands. It made her happy to know he was alive and thought her worthy of his trust. This was her antidote.

'Loving him is going to kill you one day' her traitorous brain whispered behind Sherlock every time she saw the signs of him using her flat as a bolt hole the handful of times he'd been in London while dismantling Moriarty's web of crime.

'Good thing I suppose, that I'm not afraid of death' Molly shot back cheerfully at the first sign of those nasty thoughts. Yes, it was possible, she loved a man who continually engaged in dangerous cases and didn't like the idea of considering himself a human with emotions, but Molly had known she would help him in anything from the moment the words 'what do you need' crossed her lips.

With Tom she thought she found a treatment.

He was kind, passive, patient, sometimes even too patient. She agreed to marry him because she thought marriage was something she should want at her age and Tom seemed like a good option out of all her previous boyfriends, nevermind that he could have been the body double for a certain MIA consulting defective, Tom was nothing like Sherlock.

That was what attracted her to him in the first place she told her people when they asked, Tom was steady and dependable, not the brightest man in the room and that made Molly happy, he liked sports, went to church with his family and didn't care about the news, or thought her job was anything interesting. He was just...Very normal.

(auto medicating seemed like a good idea at the time and nobody said that experimental treatments had to be exiting)

Yes, Tom liked her well enough and she liked him well enough, so after a long drawn out courtship they both decided to take the next step, it was only what everybody expected them to do. And Molly had loved Tom in her own way.

How could she not have loved him, when he was kind, considerate and reliable. Chief of things Molly wanted to be wanted and Tom fulfilled that wish. She liked him, she really did.

They just had nothing in common, but many a marriage was built on less.

She realized too late that much like the average patients with incurable conditions treatment hadn't cured her, no it had just sent her into remission. And the day Sherlock Holmes showed up back from the dead bringing with him all the madness that his presence entailed Molly wanted to hit herself for being so stupid.

She told herself that remission was okay, people could live with remission.

(No they couldn't, look at John and Mary, she would bet her spleen that they never compared their relationship to sad medical terms).

Sherlock came back and like it or not his return made Molly's job more exiting, not only that but he was finally getting it trough his thick head that she was his friend. That felt like a win in Molly's book, like an explorer in the jungle who'd earned the respect of a very proud and difficult mountain lion, she was satisfied with the fact he let her get close enough to become familiar to his ways.

In fact he was letting more and more people close enough without chewing them up, Molly wanted to pump a fist in the air at the amount of progress he'd achieved. John was getting him to open up more, Mary was helping, Mrs Hudson too and don't think Molly hadn't noticed that he was less dismissive towards Greg.

Molly hoped he kept on like that, she could tell Sherlock enjoyed having close friends and she was found of the small contribution she made to his happiness.

But that was what bummed about remission, you were always aware of the fact your condition was there in the background, threatening ominously to come back if you weren't careful.

Like a band-aid over a cut that needed stitches, treatment was bound to stop working if the toxins in your veins proved to be stronger than any outside chemical.

Contrary to what she knew people would think, Sherlock wasn't the reason she ended her engagement with Tom.

Tom was the reason she ended her engagement with Tom.

Loving someone who didn't love you was hard, Molly had learned to live with it, embrace it and even feel proud of it sometimes, but on seeing Sherlock leave the Watson wedding as he did, Molly realized that she couldn't, (didn't want to) make Tom go trough that.

He was a good man and he deserved a good woman, someone who liked gossip magazines and wanted to leave work to see him sooner every day, not a pathologist who lived for one am autopsies and didn't find his music choices interesting.

She did love him, she wanted Tom to be happy and.... Tom wouldn't be happy with her, not when she could only give him pieces of herself.

It wasn't in Molly's nature to hurt those who loved her, but if she continued as she was, then he was eventually going to get hurt. She didn't need Sherlock to tell her that. (Maybe she was angry that Sherlock HADN'T told her that, maybe that anger contributed to that slap)

Funny, talking with Tom, breaking things off with him had been easy, too easy in fact, it might have been the most civilised breakup in history. (Tom didn't want her to be unhappy either and he could tell that letting Molly go was the best thing for her).

It was the ease in which it happened that brought a revelation to her eyes: Tom hadn't really known her.

Worse, Molly realized she'd been engaged to a man who hadn't cared to know her very deeply. He'd wanted the surface of her, the funny and sweet woman who liked to cook and had a PhD. But that was it, he hadn't cared to figure what was beneath. He'd never probed deeper or asked about her fears, her secrets, her world. To him Molly's basic traits had been enough.

(She'd been dating the human version of Xanax, where were the tears? The recriminations? The screaming? she wanted a breakup fight)

When experimental treatment stops working any doctor worth their salt bans the patient from continuing said treatment, lest it ends up doing more harm than good in the long run.

This was what Molly learned from (emotionally) auto medicating.

But having someone in her veins, malady and cure, depending on the day, was something Molly didn't mind. He could live inside of her, make himself comfortable in whichever place of her heart he wanted, just as he did in her flat when the fancy took him.

As long as he was happy and not hurting himself, she would be there unconditionally, which was why Sherlock doing drugs made her so angry.

Molly didn't make a big fuss over her own feelings most of the time, if someone ever hurt her, she was forgiving to a fault, water always went under the bridge for her and Sherlock knew it. But to hurt the people he'd come to care for with his stupid, thoughtless behavior!. That was Molly's limit.

There were people who cared about him, good people! All frightened with worry over his pratish self and what did he do? He went a threw it all down for a damned high.

Molly could abide him hurting HER, hell he could throw her broken engagement at her face for all the damage it did, but John didn't deserve to go trough so much just to have his best friend shoot up, neither did poor Mrs Hudson or Greg. Molly cared about them dammit and she'd be damned if he kept hurting them, he hadn't been there when she had to see them all mourning his death, he didn't know the damage he could inflict by just dancing in the fringes of it.

But Molly did, she had helped Mrs Hudson clean Baker Street because she couldn't bear to do it after his fall, she'd taken tea with John while he lamented over starting over with his best friend gone, and patted Greg back when his eyes grew solemn every time a case that would have interested Sherlock crossed his division.

Didn't Sherlock know that his death had been too much? Didn't he understand that while he was flirting with a needle, John was probably having flashbacks to his funeral? That Mrs Hudson didn't need to be reminded of what a mess everything had been after Moriarty's death?, That Greg didn't bloody want to order a drug raid in Baker Street again because he found it difficult to be objective?.

Stupid, stupid, stupid man.

So Molly slapped Sherlock silly, she did it for John, for Mrs Hudson, for Greg and even for Mary (because she was sure Mary cared about Sherlock too) and yes it was satisfying, Molly wouldn't deny it, she could understand John's short fuse now that Sherlock had crossed the line and done the one thing that could possibly make Molly hate him by disregarding his friends.

Maybe she was also still angry about her broken engagement, not because it was Sherlock's fault, (Tom had cheated her out of a breakup fight, she needed to be angry at... Someone) but because he hadn't warned her about it. Hell he'd deduced Jim "from IT" Moriarty right in front of her two years ago, would it have killed Sherlock to give Molly a heads up?, say something like "Tom is evidently a dog person, you like cats, if you marry him you'll end up divorced in six months"

Molly wouldn't have liked it but she'd have taken it into account and come to face their incompatibility sooner. Sherlock had said she deserved to be happy and it wasn't like he couldn't tell that she wouldn't be happy with Tom.

Why hadn't he warned her?.

Later, much later (one Mycroft Holmes visit and Sherlock apology text later actually) Molly calmed down enough to regroup into herself. It was becoming a routine, to drink a mug of the most calming tea she could find in her pantry whenever Sherlock tried to upset her, just as it was to accept his apologies.

She knew he was complicated and not used to apologizing, but at least he was making an effort to mend that, in his own way.

She told herself that he cared enough about her to apologize, that this is why she'd forgiven him for all that and when Mary called to tell her (warn her) that Sherlock would...Be out of commission for a long, long time after the fallout of his fake engagement with Janine, Molly had understood enough not to pry (because Mary was Mary and Molly loved her just the way she was, cryptic statements and all). Even tough she could tell that John and Mary were visibly shaken by whatever happened.

Molly didn't push any of them, she let Sherlock call with last minute case nonsense (not knowing he was avoiding telling her goodbye) and just for the life of her tried to be a good friend.

As a pathologist the first thing Molly had learned about the human body was that it was a impressive work of art capable of performing miracles on itself if it was helped along the right way.

The immune system for example, was capable of recognizing and adapting to any type of threat by creating antibodies specially designed to attack specific toxins.

Leave it to Sherlock to become part of her immune system so intrinsically that she'd never have any hope of shaking him away.

Normally after an infection with a pathogen, the body "remembered" the infection for a long time because memory cells remained in the body. Because they remember the first infection, these memory cells could react easily to provide an adaptive response when an infection hit Molly a second time. Memory cells can remain in a person's body for many years, even an entire lifetime.

What had started only as an indulgence of candy was now such a part of her very immune system that Molly doubted she had the capacity to stop loving the idiot.

What could she do except accept the situation as it was? The good, the bad and the medically irrational, accept that maybe she would always love him. Maybe she would always have that feeling in the background of her heart, pulsing along the blood in her veins like an unseen addition to everything that made her Molly Hooper.

She had a life she was proud of, a job she loved, good friends in Mary and Meena, Greg and Mike and even Phillip when he wasn't being paranoid. Molly was for the moment after Moriarty's 'miss me' transmission living a perfectly content life knowing Sherlock was alive and annoying Scotland Yard whenever he could.

Rosie Watson came as a wonderful addition to Molly's collection of loved ones as did the fact Mary asked her to be the child's godmother knowing fully well that Molly would cherish Rosie as much as she cherished Mary and John themselves, Sherlock himself seemed to think it was a good thing to do and Molly took it as a weird form of compliment when he remarked on her ability to be a good role model around small impressionable minds (he'd thrown a pointed glare at Anderson when he said it but Molly accepted the good intentions all the same)

Nobody had prepared Molly to have all that shattered six months later.

Rosie had been too young to loose her mother, John beside himself in grief had been to sad to do anything and Sherlock...Oh God Sherlock.

Molly knew Sherlock had adored Mary, she'd been his favorite person second only to John and his grief was so plain that Molly's heart broke when she had to tell him not to talk to John, Molly had been left aching to say something that would make him feel better. But the moment was gone.

Molly never resented the powers that be as much as when she mourned Mary Watson.

'It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair' her mind kept repeating on loop every time she looked at John and Rosie. Unlike the few people who's death had affected personally in the past, Molly hadn't been allowed to mourn quietly by herself, not when John was beside himself and Rosie needed a steady female presence and Mrs Hudson kept inviting Molly for tea and Sherlock was still going trough some sort of destructive shell shock and Greg kept introducing new DA's to Molly's line of work.

What was it about all her friends that they expected Molly to be the strong one in the group? Her world had been shaken irrecoverably by Mary's death too, but somehow they all seemed to act like Molly was the go-to person when they needed someone to keep them grounded.

Leave it to an out of his senses, kite high Sherlock of all people to noticed she was stressed, of course she was bloody stressed! Being the friend who kept it together took effort and Molly was doing an admirable job at it, did Sherlock think he was the only one slowly going insane in the aftermath of what happened to Mary?, Stress didn't even cover it.

Making Sherlock cough didn't cover it.

It wasn't until Mike Stamford noticed her swaying during an early morning autopsy and forced her to get her health checked out that it all went from bad to worse.

Anemia, high blood pressure and Arrhythmia, that's what Molly was diagnosed with that day, not pretty combinations, especially in a female her age.

"Molly I think you should take the week off" Mike had said kindly after hearing of her results "your system is evidently trying to tell you something and I'd hate for anything to bring you down, especially these, you know how some things escalate better than anyone"

"Mike I ..." Molly was cut off from explanations by her boss

"And I mean actually take time off, not just go straight running to baby Watson or whatever case Sherlock needs help with at one in the morning" Mike chuckled reading over the file of tests she'd taken "Arrhythmia can easily lead to chronic heart disease or a coronary if you're not careful, why risk my favorite pathologist when all she seems to need is a week worth of rest and to eat more red meat"

"you know the rest of the staff will grumble if I just stay home, I already took time off when Mary died" Molly tried to balk wringing her hands in her lap "you need me here"

"I do, but I will need you next week too and the week after that, I'd rather have you healthy and running in a week than worry about your blood pressure now, I can handle things for the time being" Mike pushed crossing his arms over his chest "you need to take care of yourself too Molly, go home, as your superior I am unofficially giving you an executive order"

And so well meaning Mike had sent Molly home, to be alone with her own thoughts, to rest and get better, Doctor's orders.

She'd gone back to her flat intending to do exactly that, to drink some tea, watch crap telly and have a good long nap before drinking the medications she'd been prescribed. Honestly Molly just wanted to be alone.

Deal with her feelings alone.

Recover from a bad day alone.

She would think about all that needed fixing tomorrow. Just not now.

And of course, just then Sherlock Holmes happened (because really had she expected anything less? The man always had impeccable timing).

The call, the strange way he spoke, that I love you shattered what was left of her strength in one swoop.

She'd been right to assume that one day loving Sherlock Holmes would kill her, but in the back of her mind she always expected to die physically in some dramatic way, a bombing in St Barts, smothered in her bed to send him a message, maybe even a kidnapping job gone wrong.

She'd never expected Sherlock to be the one to do it, or to still have a breath in her lungs fifteen minutes later let alone that he'd use three words she'd never dreamed of hearing as the murder weapon. But it HAD happened.

He'd done it, forced the admission out of her lips so cruelly it was a miracle they hadn't come out her throat stained with blood.

The strange thing was that logically Molly knew that the Sherlock Holmes she knew wouldn't hurt her so badly, he was a bastard yes, but he'd never attacked Molly or her feelings directly.

He didn't despise her enough to hurt her where he knew she would be hurt, he could deduce her, her boyfriends, the furniture of her flat, but never flat out say something to cause her pain, not since that awful Christmas party anyway so then why had he done it?.

Sherlock Holmes, in any of his incarnations (consulting detective, best friend, junkie, man child, obnoxious brother) just wasn't the type to blatantly skewer those that cared about him.

The more Molly thought about it, the weirder his phone call seemed, his behavior didn't fit, forcing her to say she loved him just for a case? It just wasn't something very Sherlock to do and that was taking Janine and whatever had had been going on between him and Miss-naked-body-on-the-slab into account.

And also there was one last thing.

"You never lie to me" Molly said when she opened her door to Sherlock sometime before four am, she didn't bother to look at him, John had already sent her a brief summary of their latest case via text (J: Molly another psychotic genius obsessed with Sherlock decided to hold the three of us hostage while threatening to kill people including you, if we didn't comply to her games) and she supposed that she would get the full story one day....Or that Sherlock would give it to her when he came to see her in order to deliver his customary apology.

"you never lie to me" Molly repeated looking at Sherlock right in the eye "it's something that you do and I think you don't notice, I mean you bend the truth, avoid answering, escape to your mind castle, embellish the facts or give me only half of them but..."

"I never lie" Sherlock finished for her with a look of pained realization in his face "Molly may I come in? I don't think this is a conversation to have in your threshold"

Molly nodded and let him in, wondering vaguely if Mike would approve of the way this conversation was already starting to make he temples hurt (probably not, at this rate Molly would be on the Cardio watchlist until Mike retired) "why did you lie then?" She murmured softly following Sherlock to the kitchen and watching him pour two cups of tea from the kettle.

"I didn't" Sherlock replied slowly pushing her cup of tea towards her "you just said it yourself, I never lie, not to you"

"Sherlock" Molly warned crossing her arms

"It's a long story I suppose, starting with my sister, Eurus... She's the one who put everything in motion in order to reach to this point, I played right into her game and so did Mycroft and John" Sherlock began explaining but Molly was having none of it

"Sherlock Holmes you told me you loved me! That's not something to joke about, that's not something you say over the phone, or something random you can just brush off, its...It's something that means something, if you didn't lie then why?" Molly ranted angrily and directing a glare to his perfectly beautiful face "you said it twice, you knew it would hurt me and it did, I just want to know what possessed you to think that you could"

"My psychotic sister was threatening to bomb this place Molly" Sherlock admitted after a moment looking as sorrowful as she'd ever seen him "I had to make a choice between hurting you and being responsible for your death, so I did what I thought would keep you alive, don't you know I would rather have have you hating me than not have you at all?"

"She threatened to kill me" Molly gasped bringing her hand to her chest as the understanding dawned on her "in order to get you to hurt me" she sat down pondering the implications of that, the pathologist part of he kicking in once again "because death would have been too easy, once someone dies they don't have to endure what comes next, but when a heart gets broken like that, the pain lingers so badly death sometimes looks like a kinder option, oh Sherlock what happened to you in there?" Molly choked feeling tears threaten to fall.

"She wanted to win" Sherlock couldn't believe that Molly could have deduced that even before he could "there was a coffin there intended for you Molly" Eurus knew he'd be hurting himself in the process, because Sherlock wasn't built to survive the emotional aftermath of destroying someone who loved him "you could have died because of me"

Just like Victor, just like Mary.

"It's okay, don't worry, it's fine" Molly crossed the kitchen to give him a hug "I'm not dead, she didn't win, you were stronger than her"

"But she did win, she wanted you to suffer and she wanted me to watch" Sherlock brought his arms around her and put his chin in her head "it was a long term plan Molly... You're not supposed to forgive me for it, and the regret of those words is supposed to haunt me forever"

"front row seats to someone's pain when you can barely handle your own" Molly agreed remembering how much that bloody phone call had wounded her, like a blunt knife gutting her, how would she feel if she'd been the CAUSE of something like that? "Oh Sherlock what did that mad person put you through?" Molly almost sobbed into his chest

"Molly please don't cry, I'm the one who ruined it all, please don't cry"

"Do you regret telling me you love me?" Molly whispered "because if you did, now would be the time for that apology"

"I don't" Sherlock replied evenly tightening his hold around her "I do love you Molly, I don't understand how it works or if I'm any good at it, I had the realization in the most traumatic way possible, but I don't regret saying it" he made a pause as tough gauging his words "I only regret that by making you say you loved me, I hurt you"

  
"If you don't regret it then you didn't do lasting damage" Molly said at last separating herself from Sherlock "come Sherlock you look tired, I'll make up my bed and you can sleep there, how do you feel about a shower" she cocked her head in the direction of the bathroom

"Is this your way of saying you forgive me?"

"My father used to say that love meant never having to say you're sorry...I never quite understood the phrase" Molly sighed helping him out of his wrinkled coat with a tired smile "I guess now I do"

"You're more resilient than the average woman aren't you Molly Hooper?" Sherlock asked raising an eyebrow in surprise

"I have to be, since I'm in love with an idiot who is larger than life"

Sherlock smiled and kissed the top of her head "I am truly lucky to have your love, even if I don't deserve it"

"You'll get used to it, hopefully sooner than it takes for me to get used to having yours"

"We'll talk about that and the rest in the morning?"

"Yes, everything can wait until morning..." Molly agreed smiling back

A pathological condition was something that could grow from an atom sized toxin into a world wide issue, mental, physical, physiological, it had the potential to be deadly for those who didn't know how to handle illness well, it could affect not only an individual, but friends and family too.

Had the potential to make or break one's spirit.

But sometimes, just sometimes, a patient found themselves in a much better place when all was said and done, Molly liked to think some people learned not only to cope with their conditions but to thrive alongside them, miracles of medicine had a habit of happening to people who never lost hope.

Maybe Sherlock Holmes would always be part of her emotional physiology.

And maybe Molly was okay with that.  


**Author's Note:**

> Wow that escalated fast. I did not expect this fic to be so deep.  
> Medical inaccuracies aside, I hope you guys liked my take on Molly. She's a great character and one of my overall favorites so I really really wanted to do her justice


End file.
